


She Didn't

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sister-Sister Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6429064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex's feelings for Kara have always been...complicated.  One-sided Kalex.  Angsty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon Alex as demisexual gay in this fic :) Kara and Alex are the most important relationship on this show. Just saying.

Alex Danvers never asked for much in her life.  Least of all a sister.

 

While her peers in elementary school begged and begged their parents for a little sister or brother of their very own, the way they might plead for a toy or a video game, she quietly and very happily occupied her space as the only child.

 

Kara was the gift she never asked for, and wished she could return.  But there was no returning a gift to a store that, well, exploded.

 

That sunny afternoon, she peered out the window at a thirteen year old (but actually thirty-seven year old?) alien that was there to stay.

 

She may as well have been given a puppy, the way that girl followed her around.  She knew she had to feel bad for her, because her home was gone.  She knew she was supposed to protect her, even though Kara had powers beyond Alex’s wildest dreams.  

 

Powers that took her flying over the city skyline just to attract strange, frightening men into their house.  Powers that landed a car door hurdling into her body and left scars.  She beamed brighter than she cared to admit when Jeremiah told her that Kara would wear the lead-lined glasses to hold back her powers.  She wouldn’t be special anymore, and Alex could shine.

 

Alex definitely resented her.  Alex wanted to hate her.

 

But she didn’t.

* * *

 

One crisp fall evening a few years later, seventeen year old Alex prepared college applications to the finest schools in the country.  She had everything down to the last detail taken care of with record speed by the time she got to Stanford’s accelerated bioengineering application.

 

Alex already knew she had the grades and the gumption to get into and get through the internationally lauded program.  That wasn’t the problem.

 

The damned essay question was mocking her.  “Why are you interested in pursuing a career in scientific research?”  As if they cared why.

 

Well, of course the answer was that the work was fulfilling.  And intellectually stimulating, and it was everything she was exceptionally good at. 

 

The easy answer.

 

The hard answer was that she wanted to be the reincarnation of her father.  Her  _ dead _ father.  The father that, even though it had been almost two years since that tall imposing man knocked on the door and informed them of his demise, still pervaded her mind every single day, telling her to push, to be better.  To make him proud.  To be his shining star.  

 

She hadn’t been that since she was fourteen.  Because  _ she  _ was the star.  Even though in the years they’d grown closer than any best friend she’d ever had, Kara was still the (albeit indirect) cause of all of her misery.  She just knew it.  Alex saw red and pounded her fist on the desk.

 

Almost immediately, Kara busted through the bedroom door, nearly twisting the doorknob out.  

 

“Alex!  What’s wrong?  What are you doing?  You’re going to hurt yourself!”  Kara scrambled for words and reached to take Alex’s hand.  The older sister snatched it away and leapt to her feet.

 

“What’s wrong?  Seriously?  It’s you!  My dad is dead and it’s because of  _ you _ !  He never would’ve left to work for the government if you hadn’t shown up at our door.  He never would’ve been on that plane.  And now I can’t write a stupid college essay because you...ruined...everything.”  Alex seethed, and Kara took a step back, pushing her glasses further into her face.

 

A heavy silence hung between them as Kara stared, wide-eyed, and Alex felt burning stings behind her eyes.  She shook her head violently and rushed past Kara, who turned her head to watch her leave but didn’t follow.

 

Alex escaped from the house, evading Eliza’s notice.

 

She found herself at a party hosted by some senior boy whose parents didn’t care enough to take him with them when they whisked each other away for one island or the next every other weekend.  There were buckets aplenty stocked with ice and beer and wine coolers, and Alex was there to drink.

 

_ Fuck it.  My dad’s not here to be proud, so why try. _

 

One beer became two, and two became four, and the athletic, put-together Alex was three sheets to the wind after two hours.  The senior boy saw it and ran with it, coming over to dance with her and before a single song was done, running his hands down her arms, up her abdomen, and skimming up to her breasts.

 

Alex was pretty sure she broke his wrist.

 

She ran outside to the front yard and collapsed on the grass in tears.  She was angry before--now she was just miserable and drunk.  Eliza would kill her.  

 

Alex heard a loud thump a few feet away on the concrete.  Through the blur in her eyes, Alex could discern a pair of small clumsy feet walking toward her from the sidewalk.  

 

There was Kara, the street light haloing her dark blonde hair, looking at her hesitantly and reaching out a shaky hand.

 

“I heard you,” she explained simply. 

 

Alex gazed at her for a moment, then allowed Kara to enclose her hand in hers and rose to her feet.  Kara pulled each of Alex’s arms and wrapped them around her waist.  They weren’t supposed to fly anymore, but Alex let herself be moved.

 

“Hold on,” Kara instructed with a soft whisper, and Alex nodded.  Kara bent her knees and launched into the air again.  Cutting through the wind and the chill of the night air, Alex buried her face in Kara’s neck and hoped Kara wouldn’t mind the dampness.  She felt a tingling in her hands and a warm weight in her stomach, but faced with these unknown feelings, she just closed her eyes and sighed.

 

Kara should’ve been hurt, been angry, closed off her super ears and turned a blind eye to Alex’s cries.  She shouldn’t have given into her hero’s heart.  She should’ve rolled over in bed and ignored Alex, should’ve let her suffer in solitude.

 

But she didn’t.

* * *

 

Alex is twenty-six and has accepted that her feelings for the super powered, amazingly kind-hearted young woman that calls her “sister” are stronger than they should be.  Anyone who wanted to kill Alex need only hurt Kara, and they’d put a metaphorical bullet in her heart faster than a gun ever could.  

 

Red kryptonite brings out the deep-seated anger in Kara, shoving accusations of Alex’s resentment and jealousy back in her face in harsh, venom-soaked words.  Alex can only be grateful it wasn’t her that Kara chose to throw off a balcony.

 

And yes, much of what Kara says is true.  Well, was true.  Alex did feel all of those things when she was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...but at seventeen years old, flying home from a stupid high school party, everything changed.  That’s what Kara didn’t know.

 

If J’onn ever decided to read her mind, he’d know the truth.  Alex’s heart rested in the strong hands of Kara, and she’d never know it.  The second she got clumsy with it, it’d be the end for Alex.

  
Did she have inappropriate thoughts about her sister?  Yeah.  Sometimes.  She hated herself for it.  It didn’t matter if “they don’t share blood.”  Alex would never go up to her and kiss her with the nearly ten years of built up passion she bore on her back, but were Kara to move to kiss her, she’d hold her breath until she could exhale every bit of tension that damned girl insinuated into her bones back into the source of that ache, into the base of Kara’s throat, never to be seen again.

 

Alex would watch Kara as she fell for boy after boy, sighing to herself and taking it.  She pursued romance at first too, trying to create enough of a sense of fullness in her soul that she could disentangle Kara from its twisted depths a little at a time.  But it was useless.

 

She stopped going after true love by the time she finished grad school.  Night after night she had turned back to alcohol, just like in high school, from beers to rum and coke to whiskey straight, and took home women with tall, athletic frames and silky gold hair.  She took them fiercely, letting them scream out someone else’s name when their orgasm came.  She didn’t want anyone calling out for her but Kara.  It didn’t matter how badly she wanted these girls to take her place.  It was a line she wouldn’t allow anyone to cross.

 

When J’onn had found her in that jail cell and brought up her sister, she knew it was game over.

 

Alex reformed herself under the DEO’s mentorship and slowly her feelings toward Kara seemed to drift back into the safe zone.  She could be a proper sister to Kara again, dressing her for blind dates and marathoning Homeland, laughing as Kara ate enough in one sitting to pull Alex through half a week.   Kara kept busy with Cat Grant, and she dutifully worked towards field agency.  And if the old ache popped up in her chest, she just threw herself into her work for a few days, and Kara accepted that her sister got swamped in the lab every now and again.  She would leave Alex texts saying she missed her with little hearts at the ends, and Alex would just type back a smiley.

 

Things were okay, and Alex didn’t have to hate herself.

 

Then Kara became Supergirl, and everything she had fallen in love with about Kara became twice as prominent.  The heroism, the immeasurable kindness, the enormous power she held--all of it was thrown back in Alex’s face and she was thrust to square one all over again.

 

Now Alex is watching her fall in love again, with a man that makes her smile more than a thousand sticky buns.  He isn’t good enough for her, she convinces herself.

 

But neither is she.

 

_ “Without me, you have no life.” _

 

Kara had apologized profusely and Alex had forgiven her.  She always would.

 

But that night, she pushes through into an unforgiving glorified concrete box, with lights down low and music blaring, the smell of sweat and unbridled need pervading the air she inhales, familiarizing her immediately to her old haunt.

 

_ This one will do, _ she thinks to herself, spying a suitable target at the end of the bar.

 

“My name’s Jenna,” she purrs, sliding swiftly onto a barstool and pointing two fingers at a bottle of high shelf scotch she couldn’t afford.

 

The girl smirks back at her, in a way that looks too familiar, and Alex should run away, should stay clean from her greatest vice, should go back to being Kara’s sister and pretending nothing was pulling at the very edges of her being, threatening to unravel her completely.  She should turn around and end it right then and there.

 

But she doesn’t.

 


	2. She Can't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No matter what Alex does to keep Kara out of her head, she keeps showing up. Alex is drunk, Kara is sad, and everything could be ruined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens when a one-shot suddenly isn't enough...

Dana?  Dina?  Who cares.  Whatever her name is, Alex pulls her roughly by the collar from the taxi to the door to her building, pleased with the mewls the girl emits in response to the brusque treatment.  Alex never knew why she took such pleasure in seducing these girls into perfect submission for her, but she always supposed it prevented her from ever getting attached.  That, and the fake aliases, and the concise instructions for departure as soon as she was done with them around four o’clock.  If she ever heard protests, she always settled it with cab fare.  When the sun came up, Alex would be alone, just as she wanted, with the remnants of power clinging to her like captivating fire.

 

But for now, Alex continues to lure her prey, kissing and biting at her neck as they ascend in the elevator.  One of the lights on the ceiling flickers and it fits in perfectly with the way Alex feels. Drunk on dominance and plenty of scotch, every ounce of blood in her arteries seems to pulse at the same rapid rhythm as the strobing flares.  

 

Releasing her latch on the woman’s collarbone at her floor, she grabs the waistband of her black jeans, scraping her nails against the skin on her hip, and tugs at her again until they reach her apartment door.  Alex wastes no time flipping through her keys to open the latch.

 

But it’s already unlocked.  Alex did _not_ leave her door unlocked.  Not even when she was inside.

 

She snatches her grip away from the girl and reaches immediately for the gun strapped to her ankle.  The girl gasps at the sudden flash of metal but Alex shushes her with her other hand held out.  “Stay here,” she mutters, and loads the firearm.

 

Alex grabs the doorknob softly, then twists it in a fluid motion and rushes through the door.  Adrenaline flashes behind her eyes as her arms extend and ready themselves to shoot at a shadowed figure that stands tall facing the entrance, as if waiting for her.

 

“Whoa!  Whoa, Alex, put that down!” the figure exclaims.

 

_Oh, of course.  Because fuck my life, that’s why._

 

“Kara what are you doing here, it is one in the morning!” Alex implores.

 

“I just...I wanted to talk...could you please lower that?  I know I’m bulletproof but that’s still pretty uncomfortable--”

 

“Shh!” She quickly tilts her head to the side, silently explaining that she isn’t alone, and Kara needed to lay off the alien stuff.  As Alex lowers the gun and flicks the safety back on, the guest in question tiptoes into view behind Alex, and Kara turns her head to appraise Alex’s visitor.  She slowly recognizes what this stranger’s purpose was here at this time of night, and Kara blushes.

 

Alex feels the girl’s breath on her shoulder and sighs.  “Out.”

 

“What--you _brought_ me here,” the woman contends.

 

“Out!” Alex repeats, with a vitriolic bite.  Confused and annoyed, her conquest sets herself free.

 

Unenthusiastically, Alex closes the door behind her and switches on a lamp.  She crumples onto her couch, already regretting that last decision as the moderately bright light assaults her eyes.

 

“I uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, with...that,” Kara mumbles, sinking down next to her sister.

 

“Oh, there will be others,” Alex chuckles through the fumes the alcohol left in her breath.

 

Kara looks at her curiously.  This is a side of Alex she hasn’t seen in a very long time and had really not been missing.

 

“If you want to get her back you can and I’ll just go.”

 

“You’re here for a reason Kara.  Just spill it.”

 

“But you--”

 

“Don’t want to talk about it.  You, on the other hand, do want to talk about something.  So, I’m listening,” Alex states, attempting to bring Kara’s attention to literally anything other than what she’d just seen.

 

Kara nods.  “I...went to see James after I left you.  You were so amazing to me after everything I’d done and said.  I guess I figured he’d be just as forgiving.”

 

“I assume from the fact that you’re here that he wasn’t.”

 

“No,” Kara acknowledges.  “I mean, he knows it wasn’t really me, that it was some sort of mind control, but he couldn’t see past that raw anger.  He can’t accept that those feelings were just primitive emotions and not my real thoughts.  Not like you can.  Not like you did.”

 

Alex remains silent.

 

“Hell, Supergirl even went to Miss Grant to apologize and she had more mercy.  Even let me sit with her until I felt ready to fly again. And I threw her off a _skyscraper,”_ Kara continues, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders.

 

“Well, Cat Grant would never admit to weakness or fright,” Alex supposes.

 

“Actually, she did,” Kara says with a small smile.  “Probably never would to me as Kara, or anyone else, or ever again, but she was honest.  She pointed out that I would need time and a lot of effort to win back National City.  And I know that, I do. I just figured it wouldn’t be that hard with my...friend,” she trails off.

 

“You mean that your friend that you’re hopelessly in love with,” Alex counters.

 

Kara doesn’t deny it, but she hangs her head under the pressure of her rejection.  

 

“Hey, look at me,” Alex gently insists.  Kara immediately obeys.  “He’ll come around Kara.  I know he loves you, and I imagine he just needs time to integrate that with the stuff you said,” she affirms, even as the words hurt her own heart.  “And until he pulls his head out of his ass...I’ll love you enough for the both of us.”

 

Kara gazes at her, the hints of a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and brightening her tired, pained face.  

 

Alex feels dizzy, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the alcohol or the intoxicating effect of Kara’s illuminated eyes.

 

The smile on her sister’s face begins to falter, and Alex internally panics.  She’s sure she’s been caught staring.  Or Kara must not believe her, she must be convinced she’s not really forgiven and Alex is putting up an act and…

 

But then she’s _kissing_ her.

 

Alex’s body catches fire as Kara frantically tangles one hand in her hair and the other around her shoulders and locks her lips onto hers.  Oh, Kara had kissed her before, on the cheek and every now and then on the side of her mouth when feeling particularly affectionate, but this was different.  Intense.

 

There’s nothing she can do but to kiss back.  Kara dove into her soul and drew ten years of repression to the surface, and she can’t just stuff it back in.  Any thoughts of the million reasons why it’s a bad idea are smothered by a night of drinking and poor decisions.  Alex clutches the small of Kara’s back and presses her whole self into her sister, increasing the intensity of the kiss and feeling Kara’s warmth permeate her entire body.

 

It’s over almost as quickly as it began.  Kara pulls back, her face flushed and her eyes wide.  Alex stares back at her, in a daze.

 

“Kara,” Alex begins.

 

“No no no.  No.  I cannot believe I did that...Alex I’m sorry, I know I’ve said that a lot tonight but I am so, so sorry,” Kara sputters, jumping off the couch and pacing.

 

“And what if I’m not?” Alex whispers, emboldened.

 

Kara inhales sharply.  “That doesn’t matter.  Neither of us meant it.  I’m depressed, and you’re drunk, and that never should have happened.”

 

“Then why did you do it?  Of all the ways you could’ve dealt with your sadness, why did you have to kiss me?” Alex pleads.

 

Kara shakes her head.  “Lonely hearts do stupid things, Alex.  You didn't want that, and you shouldn't.  I’m already pushing it out of my mind and you should too.  Go back to your random girls, if that’s what it takes.  It’s not too late to go find another.  Hopefully you’ll be too drunk to remember this,” she remarks.

 

“I’m not as drunk as you seem to think, Kara, and I’m not going to forget this, so we might as well clear this air now!” Alex shouts back.  “You don’t think I know what loneliness does to a person?  This is different Kara, this is important!”

 

Kara walks away and Alex’s nostrils flare.  “Don’t you leave this apartment.”

 

Glaring back at Alex and prying open a window, Kara sheds her casual clothes to expose her Supergirl outfit and kicks them to the side.  “At least I don’t have to fly you home this time,” she mutters, and rockets off.

 

Alex seethes.  After all they’ve been through in the last day, Kara screws with her head like this and _dares_ to be mad at her for it?  And bring up that stupid party from all those years ago, a snippet of their lives she assumed Kara didn’t even think about?

 

What a fucking night.

* * *

 

Alex is in bed and she wills herself to succumb to sleep, to allow the last drops of poison in her veins to wipe her memory and stop the sobs that rack her body.  She wants to forget how Kara’s lips felt on hers, how lightning flashed in her eyes when Kara’s pored over them.  She wants to take back everything that happened, from the second she stepped into that club to the second Kara flew out her window, and do it over.  She begs for a way to repair the wall of the dam she spent so much time building just for Kara to decimate it in seconds.

 

But she can’t.

  
  



	3. She Won't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex loses control of herself to keep Kara away. Stubbornness will only take you so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon divergent in that after the events of "Falling", J'onn was not captured and Alex was not interrogated.

_“No no no, this is all wrong.  Everything is crashing down and I don’t know who I am anymore.”_

 

Alex reads the text from Winn over and over again.  A cryptic quote from Kara, he told her, and she wouldn’t explain further when he prodded.  Alex knows he’s asking for help, but she has none to give.

 

Not that it doesn’t hurt.  Even when she can’t take another second of pain, at the end of the day, Kara is still her world and she can't turn that off.

 

But last night’s display of utter callousness has left Alex determined to remain stone-faced now.  She is _done_ forgiving Kara for _every single thing_.  She’s a federal agent, a warrior, and a genius.  There’s got to be more to her than Kara, and finding it starts today, she swears.

 

It’s not like Kara’s perfect fantasy life included her, anyway.

 

_Sorry,_ she replies, _can’t help you_.   _Work’s real busy._

 

She’s probably never ignored something Kara related in his memory.  She’s sure he’s confused.  But she just doesn’t care.  She refuses.

 

She could call Kara and hash this out, and her heart wouldn’t feel so heavy in her chest.  She could text Winn back and ask him to tell her she’s sorry, that she should’ve been there and she’ll be there any minute.  She could bow out like she always does.

 

But she won’t.

* * *

A midday battle with Qinoori Raiders, destroyers of planets for their natural resources, brings Supergirl to the front lines of one of the last remaining mines in the deserts outside National City.  Looking to quickly strip all the ore from the mine without regard to the human casualties, the raiders nearly overwhelm Kara. They’ve brought explosives and it’s all she can do to evacuate the miners, subdue the raiders and throw off the bombs before the mine collapses on forty-seven people.  It exhausts her almost completely.

 

Loyal to her position as second in command, Alex dictates instructions to Kara and sees her to the end of the fight.  When it’s all over, DEO agents drop in to arrest the raiders, rescue the miners, and rush to Supergirl, checking her all over for injuries.  There are none.  If there were, Alex might have shown up. She stays behind.

 

Kara scans the area for her sister and sighs sadly when she comes up empty.  She takes off for CatCo; she’s only lost her lunch hour, after all.  Her flight slowed, she takes almost twice as long as she should to get back, and looks pathetic when she arrives.

 

Cat almost calls her Kara this afternoon.  

 

That’s what the next text from Winn reads, and Alex works harder than ever to just ignore it.  How pitiful does Kara have to look for Cat Grant to nearly use her real name?

 

None of her concern, she tells herself.

 

Several days pass like this; Kara performs her assistant duties, and every now and again she’s called to action as Supergirl.  Alex continues to dictate but cuts off communications with her sister once the fights are won.  Kara hangs around at the DEO but their conversations are short and professional in nature only.  As time goes on, Alex becomes stronger and being cold to Kara comes easier and easier.  By the time she goes to sleep each night, another fifth of scotch disappears, doing nothing to fill the abyss, but successfully icing over the chasm.

 

The drinking is getting out of hand, and she knows it.  Alex should clear her apartment of every bit of liquor.  She should stay at the DEO or call Vasquez or do anything to keep herself out of the bar.  She should try harder, before this goes beyond her control.

 

But she won’t.

* * *

One morning, Alex doesn’t wake up for work.

 

J’onn calls and reaches the voicemail.  Alex’s phone lies dead on her nightstand, and she lies passed out on the bed.  Her blinds are closed and only small slivers of sunlight reach her face through the window.  Suddenly those slivers are blocked too.

 

Kara is standing over her and tapping her shoulder.  Lightly at first, then, not bothering to hold back her strength, it becomes more like a shove.

 

“Oww,”  Alex croaks, and squints at the blonde.  Kara’s frowning, and Alex grumbles.

 

“It’s past nine o’clock,” Kara states matter-of-factly.  “J’onn’s annoyed at you, and I’m here so Cat’s gonna have my ass.  So...get up.”

 

“Fuck,” Alex curses quietly.  “Um, thanks.”

 

“You should really lay off the alcohol during the week.”

 

“I said _thank you,_ Kara,” Alex replies bitterly and glares.

 

Kara prepares a retort, but simply huffs and turns to go.

 

Alex’s head spins, whether from the hangover or the shock of seeing Kara act so harshly, she’s not sure.  But she can’t take much more of it.  This shit has to stop and she will not be spoken to like somebody’s child.  This was going to end now or in another jail cell and she prefers the former.  Time to shatter the ice, consequences be damned.

 

“Wait,” Alex murmurs, not looking at Kara but speaking authoritatively.  It’s enough to get her sister to stop in her tracks and turn.  “You owe me a conversation.”

 

Kara scoffs.  “Coming from she who hasn’t had a thing to say to me for a week.”

 

“Well what did you expect after what you did, Kara?  You ran away and you were _so_ rude!”

 

“I apologized for...doing what I did!  You said you wouldn’t forget and you didn’t, but I asked you to try and nothing has been normal since,” she complains.

 

“Why do you need me to forget so badly?  Why are you so ashamed of kissing me?” Alex implores.

 

“Because how could I _not_ be ashamed, Alex?  We’re sisters, it’s wrong and you do not need me to tell you that!” Kara cries breathlessly.

 

“You have firmly reminded me twice in the last several weeks that we are not of the same blood.”

 

“That doesn’t matter.  We were raised as sisters and sisters don’t...do _that._ ”

 

“Stop calling it ‘ _that_ ’, Kara!  You kissed me!  And I kissed back.  Quit pretending this didn’t happen!  I’m so finished letting you off the hook for _everything_ ,” Alex declares.

 

Kara clenches her jaw and moves to leave again.  

 

“Fly out that window and find out what it feels like to really be abandoned all over again,”  Alex threatens coldly, daring Kara to call her bluff.

 

She doesn’t.  Kara hangs her head, slumping, and sits next to Alex on the bed.  Momentarily stunned that she grounded her flight risk of a sister, Alex stares, but then looks away as she waits for Kara to talk.  She knows it was a low blow but she needed Kara to snap out of it.

 

“I brought up that night when you were seventeen before I left last week,” Kara deadpans.

 

“Yes.  I have a memory of that,” Alex replies, rolling her eyes.

 

“I felt bad about it afterwards," Kara goes on, either ignoring or missing the eye roll.  "I doubt that’s an event you try to keep in mind.”

 

Kara doesn’t know the half of it, but Alex lets her continue.

 

“Something scary happened to me that night too, Alex.  It wasn’t flying you around despite the fact that it could’ve gotten us both hurt.  It wasn’t you screaming at me.  And it wasn’t sneaking around under Eliza’s nose.  It was...more complicated,” Kara tries to explain.

 

Alex stares at Kara.  She was aware of how life changing that night was for her.  But Kara?

 

“I heard you crying for several minutes before I decided to come get you.  I had to think.  You taught me so much as a child about how to earn respect from other people.  And I thought if I still came to bail you out after every mean thing you said, you wouldn’t have any respect for me.  I’d just be a pushover like you said all the bullies would think.”

 

“But I didn’t think anything like that,” Alex retorts quickly.

 

“And I’m not accusing you of that.  What scared me Alex, was how little all of that mattered to me when all was said and done.  Because you could’ve cursed my name and family, struck me with your fists, and told me to go to hell, and I still would’ve gone to the edges of the universe to come save you,” Kara admits.

 

“You know I would do that for you too, Kara.  It’s what sisters do.”

 

“For fuck’s sake, Alex, you don’t get it!  I lay in bed that night figuring out that I was hopelessly, no turning back, foolishly and heartbreakingly in _love_ with you,” Kara sobs.

 

Alex gulps for air.  She was imagining things, she had to be.  “Kara, no.”

 

“Yes, Alex, I was.  I was so, _so_ in love with you and it threatened to kill me.  I did everything I could to turn it around.  Tried to convince myself that you never really loved me the way you claimed.  Everything you said that night should’ve stopped that crush in its tracks but it didn’t, Alex, it didn’t.  It all just got worse and worse until finally, you went off to college and I could learn to be Kara without Alex.  It admittedly helped that you withdrew from us all on your own.”

 

“Well, you’ve never really needed me,” Alex begins.

 

“That’s what I tried to tell myself!  That was everything I tried to repeat to myself every night to get over this thing!  And when the red kryptonite took over my head...all of it came pouring out.  I felt so terrible when I came out of it, none of that was ever supposed to come back to you!  Somehow you forgave me and James didn’t, and you still loved me even after everything, and I couldn’t convince myself of anything different anymore.”  Kara is in tears.  "You should have hated me Alex, why couldn’t you just hate me?”  

 

“And how was I going to start now?” Alex cries.  “You’re sitting here blathering on about being in love with me and did you ever think to ask me how I felt? Or were you just going to assume?”

 

“You’ve been ignoring me, what am I supposed to think?”

 

“How about maybe, that the things that have kept you from telling me how you really feel all these years have done the same to me?” she confesses angrily.

 

“Alex...what are you saying?” Kara whispers carefully.

 

“It’s not just you, you alien idiot,” Alex mutters.  “You’re not the only one with a heartache for something that never should happen.”

 

Kara is slow to understand, but the realization dawns upon her as she searches Alex’s eyes for sincerity.  Through the silence she has finally allowed to exist, she can hear clearly that her sister’s heartbeat has sped up and see that her expression is vulnerable.  Alex pleads with her to connect the dots because she just can't explain it any clearer.

 

“Oh,” Kara finally says.

 

“Yeah, oh,” Alex breathes.

 

“You love me,” Kara states.

 

“True.”

 

“I love you.”

 

“Apparently also true.”

 

“And we haven’t spoken more than five minutes in days.”

 

“Supergirl or Captain Obvious?” Alex tries to joke.

 

Kara doesn’t laugh.  “This doesn’t feel any less wrong,” she admits.

 

“Maybe we’re both so used to having it feel wrong that we wouldn’t know what it would feel like to be right,” Alex replies.  

 

“That's true.”

 

“But I know how I wish it would feel,” she supplies.

 

“How?”

 

“Like it did a week ago, just before you got up and started talking nonsense about being drunk and sad.”

 

“You _were_ drunk, and I _was_ sad,” Kara maintains.

 

“But it was still real,” Alex contends.  “And you kissing me...the idea of the two of us together might seem wrong, but I’ve never kissed anyone and had it feel so right.  You’re the only one I’ve ever kissed and never wanted it to stop.  We don’t _have_ to stop, Kara.  Just...don’t stop.”

 

Kara’s looking at Alex and she flashes back to 1:00 A.M. in her own living room.  She flashes back to the feeling of warm lips on hers and can’t pinpoint the moment when the flashback becomes reality.

 

But Kara’s kissing her again, and it’s undeniable.  

 

"I'm  _sorry_ , Alex.  I'm so sorry I put you through this pain.  I swear I will never let this happen again, because I want all of you, always and forever," she promises against Alex's lips, and deepens the kiss despite the tears.

 

It lasts so much longer this time, and when Alex pulls her head away, she’s flushed and breathing heavily.  She begs Kara, watery eyes and all.

 

“No take backs this time?”

 

Kara nods.  “No take backs.”  She smiles like she hasn’t since before anyone had ever heard of red kryptonite, and takes Alex’s hand.  

 

Alex sighs with relief and grins back as the tears fall to nowhere.  Before Kara can think to tell her how much Cat Grant is going to scream at her for being late, or what J’onn’s going to say when he finds out about this, Alex pulls Kara back and latches on to her lips, desperate to make up for lost time squandered by foolish pride and cowardice.

 

Alex never wants to lose control again unless she’s placed it solidly in Kara's willing hands.  She never wants to wake up again with a pounding scotch headache and a heart full of loneliness.  She never wants to live a life where anyone or anything has to fill a void left by a beautiful Kryptonian superhero she thought she couldn't have.  She never wants to feel so defenseless again.

 

Holding on to Kara now, she’s certain she won’t.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life's angst doesn't always have a happy ending. Luckily, this is fanfiction. Thanks for sticking with me :)


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